hy the expansive pozoer of freezing Water. 139 



stone with religious reverence, and speak of it as their 

 god, because it has followed them in their various remo- 

 vals, slowly indeed, but to a considerable distance. The 

 truth is, a stout young man resolved to amuse himself with 

 the credulity of his tribesmen, and therefore, whenever he 

 passed that way, took up the stone, which was too large to 

 be removed by a man of ordinary strength, and carried it 

 some distance westward. In this manner, the stone ad- 

 vancing by little and little, made in a few years a consid- 

 erable progress, and was verily believed to have moved 

 this distance spontaneously. The young fellow told the 

 story to an American gentleman, and laughed heartily at 

 the credulity of his countrymen." But had the rock which 

 Dr. Dwight saw been of dimensions which would render a 

 trick like this possible, he would surely have suspected it ; 

 it is highly improbable that the same strange and trouble- 

 some deception should be attempted in two places ; and in 

 the statement quoted from the Massachusetts Transac- 

 tions, some of the stones are said to be of two or three tons 

 weight. That statement appears to have been re-printed 

 from a Portland newspaper, the place where the phenom- 

 enon is said to exist, being only eighteen miles from Port- 

 land. Any thing, therefore, which might be so easily con- 

 tradicted or disproved, would hardly have been published, 

 unless it had been commonly believed. But if science and 

 literature are making such progress in this part of the 

 United States as some suppose, the matter will doubtless 

 be investigated as it deserves, and the truth or falsehood 

 ascertained of statements apparently so impossible." — p. 

 17th, of the Review. 



By comparing the narrations of Dr. Dwight and your 

 correspondent Petros, your readers will perceive, that, 

 though circumstantially different in some respects, they 

 relate to the same objects. The testimony, also, in rela- 

 tion to these effects, is certainly not to be resisted. There 

 is a pond in Rhode-Island in which similar phenomena are 

 seen, and perhaps if inquiry were made, they might not 

 be found to be very uncommon. 



The cause to which 1 am inclined to attribute them, and 

 which appears to me satisfactory, is, the operation of the 

 ice. The manner, in which the effect is produced, I con- 

 ceive to be this. The ice forms firmly about the rock, and 



